


Royal(ly fucked)

by Ididntsignupforthisshit (myhamartia)



Series: Shall We Dance [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ASL, Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American Sign Language, And is a very good dancer, Deaf!Keith, Lance is latino, M/M, Street Performers, and speaks Spanish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 14:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7535635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhamartia/pseuds/Ididntsignupforthisshit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance took a look to Pidge, who had since pushed their amber into the pocket of their olive green coat and was looking over to them, looking at Hunk’s hands and the tapping of his foot on the concrete. They brought their bow up to the bass strings and slowly dragged it along them, more following Hunk’s lead than Allura’s quick pace set by her violin. Lance grinned at them all. That kind of signified their friendship in a way, he mused. They all went at different paces in life - sometimes overtaking and surpassing each other, but always in sync and melding perfectly with the others.</p><p>    The young man let his eyes slip shut and peacefully listen to the music for a moment, shaking out his shoulder and getting warmed up.</p><p>Or: The one where the kids preform on a subway platform in order to pay their rent and Shiro introduces his cousin to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Royal(ly fucked)

**Author's Note:**

> Cállate literally just means shut up. Keep that in mind. 
> 
> There are links inbedded where certain ASL words are described. The link will take you to the "ASL Sign Language Visual Dictionary" where it shows how to do these certain signs.

Lance busied himself with setting out his cap. He straightened it out and grinned at the small gathering of people clumping together in front of them along the subway platform.

    “Lance, do you have my amber?” Lance’s roommate Pidge asked from behind him as they fiddled with their bass bow. “Nevermind,” they huffed, “I found it.” Lance smiled and turned to face them. They were almost too short for their bass, if he was honest. It stood, large and shiny as Pidge held it up, struggling to rub their bowstrings down with the amber.

    Hunk sat to the side on an old worn out bucket. In front of him were even more worn out buckets. They weren’t exactly sure how he took such ordinary things and made such amazing music out of them, but they also weren’t going to question it. Hunk held a pair of drumsticks lightly in his hands, tapping along the side of one drum while the other set the main beat on the base of the bucket. His head bobbed with the rhythm as he tapped away, waiting for his friends to get ready.

    The last one to their band of mischiefs stood to Hunk’s side, quietly listening and studying his beat before her foot began counting out the beats along side him. The fiddle she held in her hand was quickly nestled between her chin and shoulder before she played along with him, setting a complicated pace that still matched perfectly to Hunk’s slower, steady beat.

    Lance took a look to Pidge, who had since pushed their amber into the pocket of their olive green coat (it was much too big and it made them look like they were swimming in it. It was her favorite one, as it had once belonged to their brother) and was looking over to them, looking at Hunk’s hands and the tapping of his foot on the concrete. They brought their bow up to the bass strings and slowly dragged it along them, more following Hunk’s lead than Allura’s. Lance grinned at them all. That kind of signified their friendship in a way, he mused. They all went at different paces in life - sometimes overtaking and surpassing each other, but always in sync and melding perfectly with the others.

    The young man let his eyes slip shut and peacefully listen to the music for a moment, shaking out his shoulder and getting warmed up.

     After a moment, Hunk let his sticks flourish over the tops of the buckets before gracefully coming to a stop. Allura and Pidge weren’t far behind. They were all smiling at their impromptu song, and the scattered applause from curious travellers only spurred it on more. Lance got a few questioning looks, as if to say  _ “Now what’s this guy gonna do?” _ . He snorted a laugh. They’d have to stick around and maybe see. And hopefully tip.

    He was but a poor college boy, couldn’t he dream?

    “Ready?” he asked, looking over his team. Each nodded in turn. “Then let’s go!”

    Hunk started them out, formulating the well-rehearsed beat onto the plastic buckets he had out. Lance sidestepped his way to Pidge’s right, getting comfortable in his space. Pidge shot him a smirk.

    “Make our rent money for us, pretty boy,” they teased, dragging their bow across the strings. Back and forth. Lance snorted and rolled his shoulder.

    “ _ Cállate _ ,” he retorted and moved to the side. He brought his arm, resting his forehead in the crook of his elbow while his right hand trailed down his body. He felt the deep tone in his chest, while a higher sound flowed into his ears. Allura had joined in. Lance let his hips sway as he let his knees bend a bit, popping his ass out in a way that had Pidge rolling their eyes dramatically. In their next measure, Lance pulled himself straight in a way that mirrored how he first went down.

    As Lance began clapping to the beat, more people gathering, crowding around them, attracted by the music and held captive by the harmonious way each played with and to one another, paired with the fluid movements of their friend. Many people followed Lance’s lead, clapping along and counting the beat.

    Pidge and Allura both made quick movements, pulling their bows back and forth twice. At this, Lance shook his hips in tune to them, repeating the step a second later when the two played it again.

    He twisted and turned, loving the attention his subway spectators gave him as he twisted and turned, dancing to the music. After a moment, there was a build up, Pidge’s bass reached a high octave, and Allura was right beside her. Lance placed his pointed toe behind his opposite heel, and he pushed himself off into a spin. It was quick, but his eyes slipped shut. One hand curled into the air while one tangled itself in his hair. Pidge and Allura cut themselves off, and with that, Lance came out of his spin, dropping one knee to the ground, his hands falling limp beside him. Hunk was the only one playing now, but even his beat was softer and fleeting.

    After a full set of beats, Allura came back in. Lance could nearly hear the lyrics.

_ Let me live that fantasy. _

    Lance kept his head dropped, not letting the audience see his face quite yet as his shoulders lifted up and he shifted, slipping to sit with his legs folded. He blinked, looking at the well gathered crowd as he waited for Pidge and Allura to fully emerge from their drawn-out pause.

    He placed a hand against his chest, and then crossed his index fingers over the other one before flipping them over and doing the same thing. He gestured between himself and the mass of people in front of him with his right hand before flicking his finger up twice, smiling brightly. Into the rest of the verse, leading into the chorus, he signed the words.

    This was a regular thing, signing the second verse and at least one of the chorus. It became routine ever since one of Lance’s little sisters, Sophia (she was deaf) had asked the lyrics to a song she was listening to on his iPod. She had both earbuds jammed into his ears and was swaying to what she could hear. He smiled, stealing one of the earbuds and slowly translated, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he did.

    It had become a habit, translating songs he listened to into ASL. He and Sophia would sit in the living room, the iPod between them as Sophia watched Lance decipher the lyrics and make them so she could understand. Soon started formulating them into his dance routines, setting aside special parts of the song that he would sign. It was like each part was a tribute to his little sister. She grinned gleefully every time she saw another one of his routines and praised them thoroughly.

    In the short pause after the chorus, he fluidly picked himself up off the ground. He shifted and swayed his hips, moving his arms alongside himself as he side stepped in a complex sequence. He planted his foot and went into a side turn just as Hunk hit the plastic drum one last time and Pidge was leading into the last few bars. He heard them hum the last  _ let me live that fantasy _ before they held the strings tight around the bridge, cutting off the sound all together.

    Lance stood still, panting. A small bit of sweat beaded down his forehead as his pulse returned to normal.

    All at once the people surrounding them graced them with applause. Coins and crumpled dollar bills were tossed into Lance’s hat. All four of them stood, lining up. They each took a bow. Pidge had a hard time bowing around their bass, but managed. Allura held her violin and bow in one hand while she bowed at the waist, her other hand flinging out. Hunk bowed once and then shuffled on his feet, lightly kicking his bucket as he did.

    “Hey! Thank you all! Thank you!” Lance exclaimed, bowing in exaggerated movements. He grinned again, looking at his friends, who were all smiling proudly (Pidge was eyeing the nearly full hat, more than likely praising the Higher Powers that it would help with the rent for that month.).

    The crowd quickly dispersed. People have places to go, things to see, after all. Last minute coins were tossed into the hat (which was emptied into one of Hunk’s buckets, as it had began to overflow) and people hurried to their train until just two people remained. It was two men; one seemed much older, by how tall he was and how muscled his build was. He was black hair with a strange patch of white hair poofing from his forehead.

    Lance knew this man as Shiro. He was both Allura and Pidge’s boyfriend. He lived in a small apartment a couple of blocks from Lance, Pidge and Hunk’s shared apartment.

    While he didn’t recognise the man standing next to Shiro, he noticed the similarities between them, such as their dark hair and tendency to stand with their arms crossed.

    The young man had black hair, but his was in a mullet that made Lance cringe. He had a slimmer build than Shiro, but looked as if his arms still held a fair bit of muscle, as Lance observed, looking along the young man’s arms. He wore a sleeveless red tee and a pair of white fitted jeans tucked into a pair of boots. His face was bright, even though his smile was barely seen. He blinked rapidly as he looked directly at Lance. Lance himself blinked, taken surprise at the young man's blatant staring. He felt a faint heat in his cheeks as he dropped his gaze down to his sneakers on the concrete subway flooring.

    Shiro approached the quartet, the young man trailing behind him.

    “That was great, you guys!” he praised. “Did you practice it a lot?”

    “Only thirty seven thousand times,” Pidge groaned, finishing up putting their bass away before making their way over to Shiro and throwing an arm over his shoulders, feigning exhaustion. “But  _ Tiny Dancer _ , over here,” they whipped a hard look to Lance. “Kept fucking distracting us!” they groaned again, burying their face into their boyfriend’s shoulder.

     “Hey!” Lance exclaimed. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t get it right!” He pointed at them, their upper lip twisted up.

    Shiro laughed, bringing up an arm to drape across Pidge’s shoulder for a moment, pressing a kiss to their head, before pulling away from her. “Guys,” he begins, tilting his body so that he showed off the young man next to him. His hands moved along, signing as he spoke. “This is Keith-,” He fingerspelled out his name, K-E-I-T-H, “-my cousin. He’s staying with me for a few weeks.”

    The corner of Keith’s lips lifted as he waved to the four of them.

    “I know Lance is the only one who can sign, but Keith knows how to read lips, so, uh.” He turned back to the man and began gesturing to each of the group in turn. “This is Hunk.” H-U-N-K. “Allura. My girlfriend.” A-L-L-U-R-A. [He scraped his thumb down his jawline before crossing his index fingers. He flipped them over and did it again.](https://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/GIRLFRIEND/164/1) “Pidge. My partner.” P-I-D-G-E. [He made a movement that reminded Lance of sweeping of fanning something away before he brought both hands down in a sort of vertical semi-karate chop.](https://www.signingsavvy.com/wordlist/19834/PARTNER/703292) “And this is Lance.” L-A-N-C-E.

    Keith lifted his hand in a half wave. “Nice to meet you,” he said. His voice was slightly off pitch, and it warbled at the end of the sentence, but Lance smiled brightly at him.

    “Nice to meet you too, buddy!” he signed along with his words, making Keith’s face light up as he did.

    Seconds later, Pidge dragged Shiro and Allura off momentarily to look at the new case they had bought for their stand bass, while Hunk got busy to put away his buckets. Lance was left with Keith, who still stared oddly at him.

    “That was a very nice dance,” Keith said, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

    Lance gave him a crooked smile, tugging on his hat. “Thank you,” he tapped his chin with his fingertips and pulled his hand down. “I’m glad you liked it.”

    Keith nodded, flicking his eyes to the side. “It’s not all too often you see something like that,” he mumbled. “It was very nice.”

    Lance shrugged. “You ought to see my other ones.” Keith’s eyes flicked back to his hands to see his reply. He nodded a bit, shuffling along the floor.

    Keith looked back up to him, a little glint in his eyes. “One thing,” he said, drawing his hands from his pockets. “R-O-Y-A-L is not signed like this-,” he made an ‘r’ with his left index and middle fingers. He dragged them from his right shoulder to his left hip, creating the visual of a sash. “It’s like this.” [He made the ‘r’ with the fingers of his right hand this time and dragged his fingers from his left shoulder to his right hip.](https://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/ROYAL/2392/1) “You did it backwards.”

    “I-,” Lance’s jaw dropped, a little twitch coming to the corner of his eye. “It is not!”

    “It is!”

    “No it isn’t!”

    [Keith made a fist and rocked it back and forth, as if he was knocking on a door.](https://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/YES/493/1)

    When the others looked back to the two boys, all they saw was hard set faces and frantically moving hands, knocking and slapping together as the two boys argued.

**Author's Note:**

> The links to the videos that inspired this are:  
> ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J_2K1Gvruk ) This is a bass cover of Lorde's "Royals". If you look at 0:35 there's a sound there I don't know how to describe, but that's when Lance does the hip shimmy I was talking about.
> 
> ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLwGSK4b4QY ) is an ASL cover of Royals. It's fantastic. Please watch. Lance signs from about 1:22 - 2:24.
> 
> I am honestly so surprised that no one has had Shiro/Pidge/Allura in a fic yet. I mean. It's perfection.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I wanted to do something a little different this time, y'know? I personally love the idea of fitting ASL into dance. I literally do it all the time in the car. It's kind of therapeutic, in a way. It makes you concentrate on the words and proper grammar as you translate, and not just word-by-word. It takes my mind off of undesirable things.
> 
> Man, I hope you enjoyed this installment! I absolutely loved writing it! Please drop me a comment telling me what you thought! I fucking love feedback, y'all. It is my lifeblood.
> 
> I'm on tumblr @youngtiredandhungry , if you want to come send an ask or a message. I take requests and prompts, so if you want to read these goofballs do something specific, hit me up and I will see what I can do!
> 
> EDIT: This is the music I listened to while writing this piece! ( https://open.spotify.com/user/olliecaspar/playlist/6bjQ9Vd4H5Sw6PdylQWlWd )


End file.
